The piles of data gathered from business intelligence and analytics tools is of little use to BI, data management and IT teams if they don't have a good way to visualize the data. To put data to effective use, IT teams need to construct an infrastructure that will send data to the right people and have it appear clear, simple and easy to use.

This three-part guide takes a look at how to create a foundation that allows business users to take advantage of that data. Ed Burns and Craig Stedman kick things off with a look at the 2015 TDWI Executive Summit in Las Vegas. At the conference, BI and data management teams shared how focusing on architecture enhanced their analytics efforts. Next, David A. Teich looks at why business users still need help from IT when they use self-service BI tools to analyze and visualize data. The concluding article looks at how a shipping company is using location-based analytics and visualization.Continue Reading